We value these now, perhaps more than ever before.
Well, I'm glad you asked, John, because this is an extraordinarily difficult moment for so many people whose lives have been turned upside-down.Īnd one of the most painful parts of it has been not being able to see people, not just our family or friends, but even strangers in our life, being able to sit next to strangers in a coffee shop, appreciate people who might be walking down the sidewalk with you. It reminded me as my experience as a doctor caring for so many patients who came into the hospital alone and had nobody with them, often even at the time of death.Īnd what I came to realize was that loneliness was very common, with more than 20 percent of adults in the United States struggling with loneliness, but it was also very consequential for our health, that people with loneliness standing to have an increased risk of heart disease, of dementia, depression, anxiety, and even premature death. It reminded me of my own experiences as a child struggling with loneliness. I was really taught about people I met all across America and really across the world about how, behind so many of the stories of addiction and violence and chronic illness that exists in society, there were deep threads of loneliness that I was finding.Īnd this is true whether I was talking to young or old people, whether I was talking to members of Congress or to farmers in the Midwest.
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